What does CRM and retention cover?
What should happen in the first 72 hours after a first purchase?
A customer who has just paid is still deciding whether to stay. The sequence is access to the product, help getting value from it, and one offer that does not reduce the value of the first purchase to zero.
How do you stop discount abuse without starving good customers?
Rules are based on behaviour, not on blanket restrictions that punish the cohort media has just paid for. Abuse patterns are shared with the affiliate and paid teams, otherwise all three keep buying the same problem.
How does CRM handle seasonal peaks?
Demand is spiky. CRM that ignores the calendar either spams quiet weeks or misses the moment people are ready to buy. Leftover offers have to expire when the season ends.
How does CRM follow product launches?
A new product is a reason to talk to the segment that already buys the related range, not the whole database. Prices and feature copy stay within the claims list creative already uses.
Which channels belong in the lifecycle?
Email, push, in-app inbox, on-site messages and SMS. Every channel is a cost. The number that matters is customer LTV after discounts.
How is CRM measured?
| KPI | What it tells you | When we act on it |
|---|---|---|
| D1–D30 customer LTV | Value that can actually pay back media. | When it falls below the cost per acquisition (CPA) used for acquisition. |
| Discount cost / net revenue | How much of net revenue is promotional. | When the discount has become the product. |
| Repeat-purchase rate | Whether the new customer was a customer or a coupon user. | When the rate drops after a change to the welcome offer. |
| Opt-out / complaint rate | Whether the programme is burning trust. | When send volume and opt-outs rise together. |
What happens in the first 90 days?
- Days 1–20: map journeys from the first purchase to the fifth, the discount ledger, and identity keys shared with ads and affiliates.
- Days 21–45: stop sends that cannot show a lift in purchases, and rewrite the welcome journey so it does not erase the value of the first purchase.
- Days 46–70: segment on behaviour and product, with seasonal or launch calendars where relevant.
- Days 71–90: publish D30 LTV next to acquisition CPA. If CRM cannot defend the CPA, acquisition spend shrinks. That is the model working as intended.
Where does CRM usually go wrong?
Welcome discounts that buy the first purchase twice
If the customer was going to buy anyway, the discount is a transfer to them and a false signal to media. Measure incremental purchases, not discount uptake.
Treating lifecycle as a content team
More emails is not a strategy. A send that cannot change expected customer value is noise, and a reason to unsubscribe.
CRM identity the ads cannot see
Suppression lists, conversions and value have to flow between systems. That is why our retention work is wired into analytics and attribution.
Related services: affiliate terms that only work if the customer is still active on day seven, the event map CRM and ads must share and paid acquisition, whose CPA retention has to defend. For the numbers behind this approach, read how D30 value sets a target CPA you can defend.